Douglas Niles: The Puppet King

“Who was the traitor?” the elder elf asked, his lips taut across his teeth and his finger tight around the hilt of his sword.

“That,” the dragon said, with a smug tightening of his scaly lips, “is a question that will be answered in good time.”

“Hail, Porthios! Long live Porthios!”

The chants and cries rang from the balconies, from the lofty towers and the elegant, narrow windows of Silvanost, as the general led his weary troops on a triumphal march into the elven capital. Using the giant turtles that served as ferries around this island city, the army had just a few hours earlier crossed from the mainland into their capital. After forming into companies and divisions at the waterfront, they had straightened with practiced discipline and then started on this parade.

The file of elves, four thousand strong, was mud-spattered, dirty, and exhausted after months of war. Yet for all their fatigue, these troops gave no sign of anything other than jubilant good spirits. They marched with crisp precision, and if a few uniforms showed the rents of draconian claws and ogre spears, if a few boots were patched or worn from the rigors of a long march, none of these cosmetic flaws gave any pause to the elves who paraded for their people in serene, righteous pride.

The banners of the infantry companies were bright, twenty colorful pennants held high, floating in the gentle breeze. They marked the Red-Tails, the Gray Foxes, the Cardinals, and the Silver Heads, and all the rest of the units that had fought under Porthios during the long, bloody years of the campaign. Together, they made up the Wildrunners, the army of Silvanesti that had been protectors of the kingdom for more than three thousand years.

And those people who had lined the streets to see the triumphal parade, elves who were normally reserved, dignified, and quiet, let their joy show in unison. Cheers rocked the air, cries of adulation for the marshal and for the long file of his troops that followed. Horses of the four cavalry companies, their bridles shined to gleaming silver, pranced in tight formation. The griffon mounts of Tarqualan’s Qualinesti scouts, fierce fliers who had to be tightly reined on the ground, reared and snapped, their eagles’ beaks clapping loudly as they struggled and stalked along. And the Silvanesti throng cheered as lustily for their brother elves from the west as for the bold sons of their own realm.

The column proceeded through the city of marble, passing between the lofty spires and graceful mansions. Gardens, formal and precise, flanked them on all sides, and fountains sprayed at the larger intersections. As the march continued, the troops relaxed and soon were cheering back at the enthusiastic crowds.

Alone at the head of the column, Porthios rode on his proud griffon Stallyar, allowing the creature to set the pace for the march. He was the military governor of Silvanesti, commander of the Wildrunners, and had been accorded the exalted rank of marshal in the field. Garlands and blossoms flew from the crowd to land before the prancing animal, while maidens and elderly dames blew him kisses. Elven men of all ages saluted as he passed, their posture rigid and eyes bright with pride.

Through it all, the hero of these throngs held his face high, his expression a careful mask of cool acceptance. He could not bring himself to acknowledge the crowd, to wave or to smile, for there were dark thoughts raging in his head, and it was all he could do to keep those grim emotions from marring his visage. He knew that this parade was good for his troops, as it was good for the elves of Silvanesti. Every year had seen another part of the realm reclaimed from the nightmare of Lorac Caladon’s madness, and every year brought more elves forth to cheer for the return of their realm.

He felt sorry for his troops even as he loved them. He knew that he would call on them again, and in the near future. For three months they had campaigned against a nest of draconians and ogres, battled three treacherous green dragons, and finally cleared the Tarthalian Highland of its hateful denizens. Even now elven priests and naturalists of House Woodshaper were restoring the last of the diseased groves, bringing beauty back to a part of the realm that for more than thirty years had languished in the deepest depths of nightmare.

But to Porthios, it was merely another part of an odious task that was now, finally, almost done. It was a task that had kept him from his wife for much of the past two decades, a separation that had become increasingly difficult, knowing that they were expecting their first child.

Behind him came bold Samar, the great warrior-mage walking amid the company of House Woodshaper elves. He carried the long-shafted weapon that was his trademark, a footman’s dragonlance with which he had personally slain more than half a dozen dragons. Now this famed hero, champion of the Silvanesti queen and the marshal’s chief lieutenant, strolled along with the weapon upright, bowing and waving in response to nearly as many cheers as greeted Porthios himself.

The parade curled around the marble-paved streets—no straight avenues in this elven capital!—and soon the marshal caught sight of Silvanost’s most stunning feature. The Tower of Stars rose from the center of the city, a spire nearly a thousand feet tall. The structure’s outer surface was a facade of brilliant white marble across most of its expanse, highlighted by crystal polished to a mirror sheen in others. Gems sparkled from the many window frames, and ornate battlements twirled gracefully outward from the lofty central spire. Several smaller spires jutted from the main structure, balanced as if by magic over the city so far below.

Under the bright sunlight of this early spring afternoon, Porthios felt a chill, remembering that tower as he had first seen it some two decades earlier. It had been winter then, a bleak and chilly season made even more hateful by the madness that had corrupted the forest, the city, the very land itself. Abandoned by its elven population, the city of Silvanost had been a ghastly ruin of destructive vines, pavement-cracking thistles, and odious deformity that had extended throughout the buildings and streets.

And nowhere had this blight been more obvious than on the Tower of Stars. That magnificent spire had withered and curled until it resembled a gnarled, weather-beaten tree trunk. It had been there that the task of rebuilding this land had begun by the magical restoration of horrific corruption. From that tower, the slow, painstaking process had expanded across all of Silvanesti, a campaign lasting thirty years until, a few days ago, it had reached the high, rugged territory at the farthest corner in the northeast of the kingdom. And soon it would extend to the south, where one final stronghold of corruption claimed a festering island at the terminus of the Thon-Thalas River.

The balconies of the tower were now lined with lords and ladies of the Sinthal-Elish, the city’s ruling council. The males were clad in the white robes of their station, while the women wore gowns of silk that shimmered and dazzled in an array of bright colors. From there, too, the cheers rained down on Porthios and his army, though he couldn’t help noticing that the esteemed members of House Advocate, one of the oldest of the elven realm’s clans, were faint in their praise and haughty in their expression as they looked down upon this elf who, in their eyes, would always be an unworthy foreigner.

Suddenly Porthios felt very tired. He was sick of the celebration, and he had a headache from the noise. His mind wrestled with age-old questions, problems that had plagued him all his life and still threatened to drag him down in despair.

Why can’t they see the truth? We’re all elves—Qualinesti and Silvanesti. The future belongs to both of us! He thought about a secret that he shared with only Samar among all the elves in the city, the knowledge of a treaty that might change some of this, and he wished that he could tell them about it. With that thought came memories of his wife, and he felt the familiar pang. He missed her terribly.